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3) If the answer to the previous questions are "No", and "Not hugely", any idea why on earth the WS was so fond of lobster?
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I would say, somewhat intolerantly, that your story highlights that someone can indeed have a 50 and still be a rubbish player.
Take note kids; next time someone says "I've got a 50 jo n00b!" it's not evidence that they have anything worth saying.
(\_/)
(O.O) Bunny: Our time is coming
(> <)
The answer is "no" to both questions.
A lot of people just don't like Nova. I know the form itself is a bit ugly (although I really don't mind it) but the damage you can put out with it is better than in either human or dwarf form. But if someone really doesn't like it you can't make them use it. My guess is that he tried it, didn't like it or have it slotted and was waiting to respec it out.
The game is full of players that dont like or dont do things that other people expect of them and who wont share the same viewpoint. The best player to one person will be the worst person to another for varying reasons too. Imo the guy by pointlessly not using a more damaging form was not being as useful as he could be. I personally when searching for people to invite to the team dont ever look at a kheldian unless i know what kind of a contributor they are.
I play this game hoping to find like minded people to play with, all the other unlikeminded people can all go and play with eachother
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
If he was still only mid-20s there was no way he could've slotted his lobster to damage capability. Nova wouldve been a much quicker and safer course of action. But then again iv always been a firm believe in "the best defense is a strong offense"
Next time just hire me and my lvl 26 WS 
Shnyet AWAY
My PB has Dwarf, It is very handy if the team does NOT have a tank as I can stand in, handy if the tank drops as I can jump in and handy when solo to herd as many mobs as poss for a Dawn Strike. Other than that, if the team is well built and everything is going well, there is no reason at all for me to be in Dwarf. You were right to make a point IMO. So many times I have been on a team with a couple of tanks and a kheld and all of a sudden the kheld pops Dwarf and bounds upto the front of the battle when the Tanks have everything in hand, it really bugs me.
First of all, you dont know if he slotted nova at all. My nova is unslotted with a single end-reduction and my powers are all with just 1 SO dmg. End recovery is close to 0 then, specialy when you keep blasting around in a extremely squidy form. Yellow/orange/red is for him a orange/red/purple, mobs i dont want to have close to my squishy at all.
In that line, my dwarf is slotted fully now (3res,1endred,2endmod) together with some extra slots in all my attacks. I prefer wacking around in dwarf (although low dmg, i can spank mobs nonstop, unlike my squishy) just to be a bit more safer versus orange-purple mobs. Outside the fact i prefer playing a dwarf, he looks more fun 
Its basicly what you expected that made you think about it, if you see a inv tanker with all armors you think you are safe.. but what if he has NO SINGLE slot in any armor? (trust me, i helped out a lvl33 inv tanker that didnt had any slot in any armor).
So:
1. see above
2. not wrong, if only the WS would have told you why he plays dwarf only it would have been solved at the beggining.
3. see my slotting part
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
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So many times I have been on a team with a couple of tanks and a kheld and all of a sudden the kheld pops Dwarf and bounds upto the front of the battle when the Tanks have everything in hand, it really bugs me.
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Everything in hand can be different from the PoV of the Kheldian. The Kheldian suddenly spots a quant (since you're doing team-missions it can even be a boss), he had a status-effect on him, he is setting up for a double mire (ok WS only), ....
I'm chucking nova from my build with the fresspec. I picked it up to make leveling to 20 easier but I completely hate it. It holds no appeal for me and I simply dont want to spend my game time playing something I think is aweful. Others like nova (probably those same weirdo's who think blasters are "cool" :P ) but it really isn't for me. If I'm not hitting, debuffing, or controlling then I'm not having fun (in that order)
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
I play my PB in whatever form I think is best for the particular situation she's in. She's tri-form at the moment which gives 4 forms (if you include light form ) tremendous flexibility but not really that powerful in any of them.
Choosing between nova/dwarf/human for any particular fight isn't as clear cut as you might think. The Kheldian may have spotted a void stalker who can take it out with one or two hits. Deciding which form(s) to use to defeat the void stalker depends on the team as much as anything else. Only experience with the AT can really help with those decisions. I don't have serious problems with voids now, unless they con purple (or red if they're a boss) but at lower levels they were a nightmare.
An entire mission in dwarf form sounds very odd though, a very slow way to level but if he was pulling his weight I can't see a major problem. He may have found the squishiness of nova and human forms a bit of a debt magnet. To be honest, as long as everyone is having fun I'm not really bothered how others are playing their characters, as long as they're not standing at the entrance leeching of course...that's a big no no.
personally i don't understand it. If it was a PB playing in dwarf fair enuf, but warshade dwarf is pretty poor in all honesty. I only use it for double mire or extreme cases where someone needs to tank(i.e. tank goes down vs an AV or somethin like that) even then, it is apalling at tanking without eclipse up, and i have dwarf slotted
Also, for a ws, the best way to take a quant/void imo is tp to him, hold/disorient/both, switch to nova, kill the sucker!
I can understand that some people don't like nova, but even an unslotted nova form will do more damage than the slots he could have had in dwarf at that point i think
I can imagine how it must have been frustrating. However, looking at it from the khelds point of view - when I was WSing - the thoughts that follow are;
a) If I'm going in nova form, will I get aggro?
b) Is the tanker getting all aggro?
c) If I get aggro, is there sufficient backup?
Those were regular thoughts that I had before eclipse and would definately affect my game plan. Sometimes it can appear that aggro is being controlled by the tank, if there are no real damage dealers on the team - and its really down to judgement if the kheld feels safe in changing to nova. Maybe this WS didn't for good reason.
If someone were to ask me why I wasn't in nova, I may feel unwilling to air my conerns about the tank/team makeup and the risk I may be placing myself in if I go Nova form.
For example;
"Why not go Nova Form and speed things up a bit?"
"Well.... the tank can't tank and you can't heal.... I'm not going Nova Form under those conditions!"
Sometimes things are better left unsaid.
Again, I could be on the wrong track completely and the WS could just be pants
Or just using a playstyle preference 
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So many times I have been on a team with a couple of tanks and a kheld and all of a sudden the kheld pops Dwarf and bounds upto the front of the battle when the Tanks have everything in hand, it really bugs me.
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Everything in hand can be different from the PoV of the Kheldian. The Kheldian suddenly spots a quant (since you're doing team-missions it can even be a boss), he had a status-effect on him, he is setting up for a double mire (ok WS only), ....
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Yes ok well I should of singled out quants and voids they are a pain, but still there are khelds out there who randomly change forms depending on which way the wind is blowing and that bugs me.
I get travel sick when I use the nova form, so I simply didn't take it on my PB and I don't play my WS much.
I really should do something about this signature.
Thanks to all for the feedback - it looks like the concensus is at least that suggesting trying a different form isn't out of order, which I'd sort of assumed (clearly) but it's always a relief to find other people don't disagree.
As far as why lobster was the order of the day for this particular mission, it seems less clear. Synergy points out that the Nova may have received no slotting, and his well-slotted Dwarf it teh uber ( ) but that's presumably at high level. The WS I was teamed with was SKed to a level 29, so at most has 6 slots to spread between the 6 Dwarf-specific powers and the Dwarf pick itself; I don't see how that can be too uber compared to the other forms, which would have received the 18 slots available for everything up to Dwarf level. On the other hand I guess inf may have been short, and only the Dwarf powers were actually populated with useful SOs.
As far as riskyness and mob levels go, I don't see how the orange or higher colours could have seemed that hazardous in themselves for an experienced player; over the last week or so my PBs been facing missions where party size and diff levels have made even the minions purple, and hasn't struggled particularly. As Calamity and Spacedog said, perhaps the WS had unspoken fears about aggro - impossible to discount, although the fact that my controller was pretty much permanently standing in the middle of the mobs running an aggro-generating toggle (Choking Cloud) and taking damn few hits should have suggested that the mission wasn't instant debt for non-tankoids. And the suggestion wasn't "Go to Nova form and stay there regardless", it was "How about trying something more damaging and seeing how things go"...if they went badly returning to Dwarf was only ever a click away.
We were going very slowly and steadily (not a lot of choice given our damage-dealing potential), with plenty of chance to size up groups for threats/quants before going in - it's not as though the rest of the team were caffine-addled fire blasters shooting anything targetable the instant they locked onto it.
Still, ultimately one of those "will never know the answer" questions, unless the WS in question stumbles across this thread, recognises themselves, and reponds.
FWIW if I come across a similar situation I'll probably make the same suggestion again.
Personally, I'd be quizzical about it,...but I'd be reticant to ask or make suggestion, unless at the point of invitation someone had specifically said, "We have a tank, & we really need more damage". Unless it's set out why & what the invite has been given for I wouldn't, myself, find it comfortable to raise questions about how the person wants to play, as long as they are playing, & are in the action making a contribution.
It's a good point though about what we're expecting out of someone when we invite. We have our own ideas about player experience & strategy etc. I think I'll take a second to ask a Kheld if they're ok with, or can, blast or tank etc if we need one other the other.
In an otherwise balanced team I probably wouldn't make any comment at all. Switch forms, blast, tank or scrap as you want, as long as your playing & we're all having fun & we're getting through the mission .
I expect the person in question just enjoyed playing in dwarf form.
I really should do something about this signature.
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Personally, I'd be quizzical about it,...but I'd be reticant to ask or make suggestion, unless at the point of invitation someone had specifically said, "We have a tank, & we really need more damage". Unless it's set out why & what the invite has been given for I wouldn't, myself, find it comfortable to raise questions about how the person wants to play, as long as they are playing, & are in the action making a contribution.
It's a good point though about what we're expecting out of someone when we invite. We have our own ideas about player experience & strategy etc. I think I'll take a second to ask a Kheld if they're ok with, or can, blast or tank etc if we need one other the other.
In an otherwise balanced team I probably wouldn't make any comment at all. Switch forms, blast, tank or scrap as you want, as long as your playing & we're all having fun & we're getting through the mission .
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Unfortunately I don't know what basis the WS was invited on, as the tank was the team leader that had brought me in in the first place. I know we were looking because we agreed we were a rather low damage combination, and guess a WS was invited because they might be able to fill that gap, but have no idea at all what the WS was asked about/for (if anything) before their invite.
Sadly the reason I felt it worth making a suggestion was because we weren't at all balanced; in a team that already has a tank and a controller, a second tank wasn't top of our "most required" list. 
That said I was careful to make suggestions rather than requests ("Things might go quicker with a more damaging form") in case the WS was playing in "default" mode and it simply hadn't occurred to switch forms, but c'est a vie and all that.
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and when the tank said "go ahead" again put forward that things would go much quicker with a squid rather than a lobster. No response at all from anyone.
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dude
they r like lvl 20
they r stil quite stupid
THEY PROBERLY THOUGHT U WERE CRAZY!
i bet they didnt have a clue what u were on about lol
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and when the tank said "go ahead" again put forward that things would go much quicker with a squid rather than a lobster. No response at all from anyone.
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dude
they r like lvl 20
they r stil quite stupid
THEY PROBERLY THOUGHT U WERE CRAZY!
i bet they didnt have a clue what u were on about lol
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Hhhmmmm.... I thought Standoff said the kheld was mid 20's and sk'd up. And surely ( ) having played some arch or other up to 50, they would have understtod something about the game and tactics? *shrug*
...Ok, I'm playing Devil's Advocate ...back in I4 I met a PB in Hollows who told me his dad had made this toon for him after unlocking khelds - so anything is possible 
A question on Kheldian capabilities, and etiquette when playing with Kheldians...
Yesterday evening I was having a rather unsuccessful solo - with LFT flag set - with my Fire/Rad controller when I got a tell invite (nice!) from a tank that was putting a team together. At that point it was just me an him, both level 29, and I said I was happy to team but that we might not have that much in the way of damage potential between us.
To cut a long story short a 3rd party member, a mid-20s WS, was found and joined us very soon after, the tank SKed the WS and we went off to do one of the tank's Rugged missions in Steel.
The mobs were yellow/orange/red, and give the spawn sizes we were pretty damn safe - the tank was hard enough to take them solo if need be, admitted to a scranky build (but had and used Taunt - nice again), plus I was on hand keeping them locked down with Choking Cloud, AoE and targetted holds/mezzes and just in case had them well debuffed on top of that.
In the circumstances I would have expected the WS to use primarily Nova form (which was definitely available) for all the big attacks and end recovery, with maybe a bit of human stuff for self buffs and/or variety - with the two aggro managers on the team that would have been as safe as houses.
Instead, the WS used Dwarf form all the way through.
Now each to his own, and I'm not one to tell someone how to play their own toon, but after a few groups of sloooooow takedown I sent the WS a few tells suggesting it would be safe to try something more damaging than the Dwarf. I got a single reply which IIRC said something along the lines of they didn't have/do Nova, and that was it. Half way thought the mission I asked on team chat if anyone minded me making a suggestion, and when the tank said "go ahead" again put forward that things would go much quicker with a squid rather than a lobster. No response at all from anyone.
So, I'm wondering:
1) Was I wrong in my basic assumption that for a mid-20s WS Dwarf form would be the slowest way to go. My PBs in the low 20s, and while that's a different AT from WS I've found the lobster very handy for soaking the damage, but very poor at handing it out.
2) Was I out of order suggesting the WS try another form, in the interests of speed (and the controller not dozing off - with effectively two tanks to "look after" in practice I had little to do than stand in the middle running Choking Cloud and fire AM whenever it was up).
3) If the answer to the previous questions are "No", and "Not hugely", any idea why on earth the WS was so fond of lobster?